New auto-corrections imported

New auto-corrections imported

It took a little longer than expected, but as of this morning, we've imported a whole new set of auto-correction mappings which should fix a lot of the problems you were seeing during the first week or so.

Please let us know if this improves the corrections in your profiles.

Inevitably, some correct mappings might also have disappeared but this update should fix all the cases where tracks were mapped away from a correct artist.

Just to clarify something that a lot of people have asked: if you scrobble tracks with auto-correction on, and the correction is wrong, the bad scrobble will not be permanently stored. The track will fix itself once the bad correction is fixed. We will always store your original scrobble as is, and correct it on display according to whatever auto-corrections are active when you view the page.

There is also a set of guidelines for how to vote on corrections, I'll post them here for now until we've integrated them properly into the site.

Guidelines for Correcting Artists and Tracks

Last.fm has a system for redirecting incorrect or misspelt artist and track names to their correct versions. An artist or track is never deleted, instead we add a mapping from the bad version to the good one.

First of all, always reference Musicbrainz or Discogs before suggesting a change. In general, we follow Musicbrainz conventions, with minor adjustments where needed to fit Last.fm. However, their documentation is vast and sprawling so below is a summary of the main points. A very important principle is that of artist intent, i.e. always respecting what the artist intended (see Musicbrainz ArtistIntent).

The overall aim is to improve the user experience of Last.fm and make the right content easier to find, not necessarily to always be 100% discographically correct.

Artists* Use the exact name and spelling used on releases by that artist.

* Map to the spelling in the artist's own language and character set (if applicable). E.g. map:Bjork -> BjörkRyuichi Sakamoto -> 坂本龍一

* Before mapping away from an artist name, check that there is no other artist sharing the same name. E.g. don't map:Pink -> P!nkMum -> Múm

* The should always come before the name, not after. E.g. map:Beatles, The -> The Beatles

* But don't add a The if the artist doesn't normally use one, e.g. don't map:Pet Shop Boys -> The Pet Shop Boys

* Real names should be written with the surname last. E.g. map:Spears, Britney -> Britney Spears

* An artist name should only be considered a valid one if a release exists under that name. Never map to an artist name for which no release of any form exists.

* Where more than one artist collaborate on a track or a release, they're often joined with words like feat., &, vs, / etc. Only map to such joint artist names if a full release exists under the joint name and it's obvious from the credits that it's not just a guest appearance. Examples:Harold Budd/Brian EnoEd Rush & OpticalThe line between a collaboration and a guest appearance is however quite vague, and if in doubt, prefer mapping to the more prominently credited artist, e.g.Dr. Dre

Tracks* Use the exact name and spelling used on releases by the artist.

* If the name is not always consistent across releases, map to the most complete version of the name. If this doesn't apply, map to most commonly used variant (check the listener count). E.g. map:The Rolling Stones - Satisfaction -> The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

* Use the standard capitalisation rules for the language of the title.

* For remixes or versions other than the original, put the name of the version as it appears on the release in brackets after the name. E.g. map to:The Postal Service - Nothing Better (Styrofoam Remix)

* For track-level collaborations, i.e. where no full release exists as the collaboration, put the featuring artist in brackets after the track name if that artist is credited on the release. E.g. map to:Method Man - Dangerous Grounds (feat. Streetlife)

I see a lot of corrections have been made. Great. I just have one question. Of the songs it redirects correctly, if I correct the tags for future scrobbling will that affect any past scrobbling that the original tag made? I want to maintain the artist totals with the current and then correct tag.

vic.s said:I see a lot of corrections have been made. Great. I just have one question. Of the songs it redirects correctly, if I correct the tags for future scrobbling will that affect any past scrobbling that the original tag made? I want to maintain the artist totals with the current and then correct tag.

Just to clarify something that a lot of people have asked: if you scrobble tracks with auto-correction on, and the correction is wrong, the bad scrobble will not be permanently stored. The track will fix itself once the bad correction is fixed. We will always store your original scrobble as is, and correct it on display according to whatever auto-corrections are active when you view the page.

However, something that I would like to see is a brief outline of how the user input ("voting") is factored into the redirection. For example, are there thresholds for minimum votes? If only one person has scrobbled the incorrect version, is it enough that one person has corrected it?

Re: New auto-corrections imported

sharevari said:It took a little longer than expected, but as of this morning, we've imported a whole new set of auto-correction mappings which should fix a lot of the problems you were seeing during the first week or so.

Snyde1, user votes hold significant sway over corrections, but they still need to be backed by other data sources in order to be considered. There are no hard thresholds per se, but some significance factors (one vote in favor might be able to tip the scales, but 10 votes in favor will be much more helpful).

The votes are fed back weekly. Just to give you an idea, user votes affected/overrode ~5,000 artist corrections in our last run, which is around 10% of all the generated corrections.

So how do I go about getting incorrect corrections changed? I've seen several cases where (due to vox populi) an artist or track name is changed from the correct name to an incorrect name. I can of course provide ample evidence to support each case.

Your wet ragged wings and cold tiny handsWill never be able to count all that sand

For instance, I was browsing the Propellerheads' most-played tracks, and I went to flag "Bigger" as incorrectly spelled (it should be "Bigger?"), but the site is already aware of this - in fact, "Bigger" is listed with "+noredirect" in the artist charts, so the page is clearly aware of the redirect.

Can this display issue be resolved soon please? There's a lot of popular tracks which are under-represented on artist charts, due to popular misspellings. (Notable example: check the chart for System of a Down - "Toxicity" is listed as the top track, but only because "Chop Suey" and "Chop Suey!" are listed separately.)

erikfrey said:Snyde1, user votes hold significant sway over corrections, but they still need to be backed by other data sources in order to be considered. Erik;Thanks for the explanation. It's reassuring to know that our efforts in flagging the mislabelled tracks and artists are bearing fruit.

Now I just have to go and bring Musicbrainz up to date on some of the things they don't have. B-)

For example, Alisa should not be redirected to another artist because if it's the Russian one it would go to Алиса, but if it's the Japanese, I guess it would be 有紗. Will cases like this constantly be in flux where the English Romanization is a weird mixture of the two? Or will it just be redirected to the more popular one because those fans wont realize that there is "other artist sharing the same name."

Another question, there are some foreign artists where there are a plethora of spellings and none of them are merged. For example, J. A. Seazer, J.A. Seazer, J.A.シーザー, J・A・シーザー, Ｊ・Ａ・シーザー, and Ｊ.Ａ.シーザー are all the same artist (and probably even more variations). I know that voting will eventually merge them all, but will the system be able to figure out that they are all the same even if no clear 'winner' ever emerges since there are so many options that might conflict and make it so there's no real majority?

These are just curiosities that are mostly minor, and not an indictment on what looks to be shaping up well.

When you first did the auto-corrections the Rent Movie Soundtrack/Rent (The Movie)/Rent Soundtrack artists were merged with Jonathan Larson, but now they're split again? At first I scrobbled some of the songs under Rent Movie Sountrack etc. and I and probably most people would rather them under Jonathan Larson and I don't want to change it because I don't want two of the same songs on my charts like this. How come they aren't being auto-corrected anymore? Sorry if that sounded confusing.

Thanks for the update. I noticed that most live tracks I had are back and no longer merged with the studio versions. I haven't checked for other changes though.

It's easier to give a more accurate/complete feedback if, as someone said:Hypersky75 said:I'm still leaving aut-corrections off until it tells us what was auto-corrected other than in our recently played tracks.

I have close to 14000 tracks... and you can't tell me which tracks were auto-corrected when I turn it on? Until you can, this feature stays turned off...

I see that Swayze has been completely redirected to Shwayze, which is wrong. I did vote for each as valid artists ages ago, and I've recently been voting for obviously Shwayze songs that have been wrongly tagged Swayze to redirect to Shwayze, but not for *all* Swayze tracks to do so. Now someone I've never listened to is my #7 artist.

Besides voting, what else can I do? Swayze was a small local band without a large fan base and I've voted, but I am only one person.

erikfrey said:Snyde1, user votes hold significant sway over corrections, but they still need to be backed by other data sources in order to be considered. There are no hard thresholds per se, but some significance factors (one vote in favor might be able to tip the scales, but 10 votes in favor will be much more helpful).

The votes are fed back weekly. Just to give you an idea, user votes affected/overrode ~5,000 artist corrections in our last run, which is around 10% of all the generated corrections.

This is both extremely reassuring (that I know my votes weren't in vain) but also extremely concerning (because if people with wrong tags bothered to vote, they would easily overwhelm certain genres/areas of music like most of what my library currently consists of).

That said, I'm extremely pleased with how the autoredirects are right now. I swapped around my [original language] and [romanized] tag fields for title/artist etc and have left autoredirections on, so while scrobbling what should be the default original titles and artists I don't recall anything incorrect in the past day or so.

This is both extremely reassuring (that I know my votes weren't in vain) but also extremely concerning (because if people with wrong tags bothered to vote, they would easily overwhelm certain genres/areas of music like most of what my library currently consists of).It seems to me that a 'vote' is not meant to be an expression of preference, but a means of pointing out an inconsistency with the preferred way of tagging things.

I swapped around my [original language] and [romanized] tag fields for title/artist etcHow did you do that?

I see a huge improvement after new auto-corrections. At last, Asian artists are all visible under the name in their home language.

I've realised some funny thing, though. After the first auto-correction, the tag Buddha Bar has been divided into many artists taking part in this large project, which was correct. Now, it's like before the first auto-correction update, i.e. all tracks are tagged Buddha Bar again. I am one of those, who have many tracks in their library under this name, and I believe it's not the only example of such regression.

Except this little inconvenience, I am really thankful to you for having most tags correct again. Good job, guys!